Starring: Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, Cheryl Hines, Kristin Chenowith
Cert: PG
Released: 9th June 2006

Bob Munroe (Williams) is devoted to his family and his family love him. His little girl, Cassie, goes so far to say she never wants to get married but always live with him. He tells her that she will eventually move on but they will always be friends.

Fast-forward ten-odd years and his daughter (JoJo, Aquamarine) hates him with a passion. His family has become completed disconnected as his well paid job has allowed each of them a lifestyle above and beyond the national average. The amount of luxuries they have has also made them disconnected with real life.

Work is getting tough for Bob as his boss is bringing in younger, cheaper and over-enthusiastic employees. There is an even greater necessity to perform above and beyond when one of Cassie’s friends throws a glass of drink over his neurotically uptight boss. Bob is ordered to cancel his family trip to Hawaii to give an emergency presentation to a drinks company who are having itchy feet about merging.

Bob comes up with the stunning plan to rent an RV and take a camping trip to Colorado (completely forgetting to tell them about the business meeting). The plan being to get back to bare roots and spend more time together.

Amidst the natural disasters of incompetence dealing with practicalities the Munroes are befriended by season travellers, the Gornickes (Daniels and Chenowith) who are far too friendly for their isolated, introverted likings. No matter how many times the Munroes try to ditch them, fate and desperation keeps bringing them back together.

Bob is constantly juggling with secretively working, trying to keep his family happy, getting to his objective and keeping away from the Gornickes.

Williams continues his resurgence into the world of comedy after a lengthy hiatus from the field in favour for more serious and disturbing roles. From The Big White, to this and another five comedy projects currently underway, is Williams returning to his form as once seen in The Birdcage in the Fisher King or his more safe and friendly fare as Father’s Day and Flubber?

Whereas The Big White conformed more to the former, I’m afraid this leans more to the latter. The story is more than predictable with his dysfunctional, spoiled family needing all their luxuries stripped away to rediscover what’s ‘really important, you know?’

That’s ‘each other’ if you didn’t know.

There are a selection of comical set pieces as Bob desperately tries to keep everyone happy but fate and practical ineptitude constantly conspires against him but the general principle has been seen plenty of times before, primarily in the National Lampoon: … Vacation series.

The characters are all fairly two-dimensional: the well-meaning father, belligerent teen-daughter, ‘good cop’ mother, hard-nosed evil boss and the Partridge Family style, mid-Western hick campers. Each actor trundles along in neutral just reeling out their day's work (probably because there's little to work with) aside from some character acting from Daniels and Chenowith (West Wing), who plays Marie Jo Gornicke. She is delightful to watch as the good-natured mum and, at the same time, almost disturbing when she breaks out into her yodelling.

The two lead children have little input; Joanna Levesque (Aquamarine) is so obnoxious that you would wish she just got run over and Josh Hutcherson (Zathura: A Space Adventure) has few lines but has a derisory 'look' can't be beat.

The overall disappointment comes from knowing that this is a Barry Sonnenfeld film who has given us such stylish gems as The Addams Family, Get Shorty and Men In Black turns out such a middle-of-the-road non-entity.

It's an okay film but generally pointless and meaningless. Every negative aspect of this family gets rewarded in one way or another. For a film supposedly moralising over family values and appreciation still gave the family who had everything just that little bit more.